


Burn the Ground and Break from the Crowd

by Aenaria



Series: I am Here, and I am Ready [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Fantastic Four (Movies 2005-2007), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Failboats In Love, Friends to Lovers, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Mary Sue Big Bang, Out With A Bang Big Bang, cracktastic fun, technically part of a series, the Darcy/Steve listed here is also more of a side pairing to the story, they have their cameos, though there's no need to read any other stories in the series to know what's going on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 16:28:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5212775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aenaria/pseuds/Aenaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johnny Storm is an arrogant jerk who will do anything for fame and has an ego the size of the Empire State building, not to mention a pretty terrible former friend (even though, all right, they're attempting to become friends once more). So why on Earth does Jess Cortlandt think it's a good idea to keep sleeping with him? Okay, rationally, she knows it's not, but in a New York City that's seen aliens attack, a Hulk rampaging through Harlem, and even possibly falling asleep on Captain America's couch once, Jess is learning that the strangest part of it all is how to manage her own heart.</p><p>Written for the 2015 Mary Sue Big Bang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Summer, 2002

**Author's Note:**

> So, this whole thing is almost entirely RainneCassidy’s fault, when I think about it (and I’m sure she’s proud to take the blame). She’s the one who wanted to know more about a couple of side characters who weren’t even a pairing in another story, and then let me know that there was this Big Bang happening that focused primarily on original characters…so the blame is solely on her head. All good things though, she and this BB gave me the push to put a story that probably would have stayed in my head onto paper and helped to bring it alive on the internet, so she has my hearty thanks for that, and for all the cheerleading she’s done throughout the months of this story. This story’s a little bit silly, totally self-indulgent, a lot more romantic comedy than I had originally intended, and I truly adore it. I hope that you readers out there like it too.
> 
> If you hadn’t gleaned it from the prior paragraph, this story is set within an existing universe of mine, entitled ‘I am Here, and I am Ready’. However, prior knowledge of those stories isn’t required to read and enjoy this one. Anything you do need to know can be explained by the following points:
> 
> 1) With the exception of Tony Stark/Iron Man, the identities of the Avengers are not public in this universe. Meaning that the public doesn’t know that Captain America they’re seeing in the news reports really is the same one as back in the 40s (aka when I started the universe a couple of years back we didn’t know for sure if they were doing secret identities or not so I decided to go with it). The Fantastic Four, however, well, everybody knows who they are, same as the 2005-2007 movies.
> 
> 2) My main OC, Jess, and Darcy Lewis are roommates at the start of this story and have been for a while. Darcy was also in New York during the Chitauri invasion a few months before the start of this story instead of in Tromso with Jane (which isn’t super relevant to this story, but just in case).
> 
> 3) Darcy and Steve Rogers are an established couple here (if you know my usual works then that will not be a surprise at all). 
> 
> Now for the thank yous. I had a lot of help from a lot of different people, and they all helped me make this story something that I’m really thrilled with. Meri, for listening to me ramble and rant and talk me down off a ledge when I started to pull my hair out over things, and Eyebrowsofjustice for helping me figure out pertinent plot points and get the characterizations as clean as possible. Dizzy-Redhead for her fantastic, fabulous art, and for also helping me with the final stages of editing this story. Mcgregorswench for letting me bounce all of the ideas off of her, and for more editing help. And to RainneCassidy, who prompted the original little ficlet that ended up becoming this entire epic of a story.
> 
> The original post for Dizzy-Redhead’s art is here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/5157248
> 
> Okay, on with the show. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you enjoy this little trip!

 

  
 

 

Modeling was nowhere near as glamorous as people were led to believe, Jessica Cortlandt is fast discovering. Or rather Jessa Land, as her agency had decided to brand her as they were creating a specific style to market her wares to the world.

Whatever. She still calls herself just Jess in her head at least.

Even though she’s only been at this modeling shtick for a little while, Jess is discovering that a lot of it consists of hurrying around to different places and then waiting there until they’re called upon. Waiting in some very heavy clothes or uncomfortable makeup, in the extreme cold or the extreme heat, and sometimes wearing very little at all. Which could describe today’s shoot, really. Athletes and underwear models seems to be the idea for the day.

‘If extreme poker is considered a sport,’ Jess thinks with a grimace as she looks around the bright and glitzy casino she’s currently in, full of slot machines, roulette tables, walls papered in a fabric that almost looks like her grandmother’s ancient couch that she won’t ever take the plastic off of, and every single associated accessory. Then again, it’s probably the only way her seventeen-year-old ass would get into a casino anyway (especially after the incident where her parents caught her fleecing her older brothers out of their allowance in a well-placed hand of poker. It’s not her fault that they just weren’t as good as she was, she’d told her mother afterwards, earning both a laugh and an admonishment for not being ladylike). At least the stool she’s perched on is comfortable, though all of the people waiting around look distinctly uncomfortable.

From one side of the big room there’s a crack and a groan, followed quickly by the sounds of more disgruntled voices. Jess leans to the side on her stool, trying to get a better look at the apparent carnage. All she can make out is a bunch of techs and the photographer standing around one of the giant lights, which now has a shattered bulb with tiny little wisps of smoke coming up from it. “Great,” she mutters, just as she tries to figure out a way to scratch at the irritated skin where the weave is attached to her head for the day without dislodging the whole thing. At least there’s something fun about having pink hair for the day, even if the sole purpose of it is to provide a nice frame for the sparkly bra she’s wearing.

One of the other models, a fair woman with long, shiny brown hair that waves around her whenever she walks, who’s statuesque even by model standards and who had decided to adopt Jess as her protégé for some unknown reason, separates from the huddled pack of scantily clad people and comes over to her with a rueful grin, crossing her arms over her mostly bare chest to try and provide some warmth. “It’s the life, isn’t it?” Linden says.

“That’s one word for it, I guess,” Jess says, wishing she had a bathrobe to curl up in instead of just the hot pink weave.

“You get used to it,” Linden says with a shrug, carefully propping herself against a slot machine in such a way that no exposed skin bits touch the cold metal on the outside. “Hurry up and wait, and then stand around and look as pretty as possible while freezing your tits off.”

One of the supposed athletes standing near them, slowly turns and ambles over to them, hands firmly planted on the waistband of his boxer briefs like he’s trying to make some sort of a point. “Not subtle, dude,” Jess says as he approaches.

The young man (older than Jess by a few years, but no more than that - no one is old in this industry, she’s finding), arches an eyebrow. “I just heard people saying that they were cold and I was hoping to offer my services to help you warm up,” he says with an innocent look on his face and tone in his voice.

Yeah, even Jess, fairly fresh off the turnip truck from East Buttfuck, Ohio herself, ain’t buying that one.

Linden just smiles again, in a vaguely unnerving way, and shakes her head. She pushes herself off the slot machine and drops a hand on Jess’s shoulder. “I’ll see you around, _kid_ ,” she says, loudly and pointedly, then walks off.

The young man’s eyes follow Linden’s backside as she leaves, which makes Jess just sigh loudly and shake her head. “You’re not her type anyway,” she says.

“I will happily make myself into whatever she wants me to be,” he says, even though he does turn back to Jess.

“Yeah, she prefers girls. You might have a hard time there.”

“Damn.”

Years later, Jess remembers thinking that the conversation should have died there, that the two of them should have gone their separate ways to their own separate lives, but she’s never claimed to be psychic. The psychic sensitivity of a toothpick, yes, but nothing beyond that (other special talents, however? Well, that’s another story that’ll be told another time...). Instead, the young man does something that surprises her entirely.

He pulls over a stool next to hers and sits down on it. “So what’s a nice kid like you doing in a place like this?”

“Waiting, apparently. Again. And trying to make a few bucks.” She looks over at him again, takes in the muscled build that’s still a bit wiry and the dark, short-cropped hair on his head. He’d fit right in with the male models, but she’s certain that he’s one of the athletes. “You?”

“Competitive BMX biking and modeling are both surprisingly good ways to earn money to put yourself through college.”

“Ahhh, college,” Jess all but sighs. “Someday I’ll get there.” It’s a bit of a pipe dream right now, what with her demanding career, but if she can save up enough money thanks to all of these jobs, someday something might happen.

He arches an eyebrow at her, smirking just enough to make Jess think that it’s a normal expression for him. “And until then?”

“I’m gonna model my ass off,” she says, making him burst out into loud laughter that’s almost braying, but not quite. It’s kind of endearing, really.

“What’s your name, kid?” he asks her, once he sobers up. “I can’t keep calling you kid.”

Jess opens her mouth, but then she pauses, unsure of _what name_ she should give him. After all, the agency wants her to use the stage name everywhere these days, which is going to take some getting used to. “Jess – Jessa Land,” she finally blurts out.

“Yeah, now say that again so that I actually believe the name you’re giving me.”

She cocks her head in acknowledgment. Yeah, she’s not quite there yet. “Just Jess works. Jess Cortlandt.”

He holds out a hand to her and she shakes it, finding warm skin there with a few callouses for good measure. “Nice to meet you, just Jess. I’m Johnny Storm.”

“And that’s not a stage name??”

“Swear to god, it’s the name my mom and dad gave me. My middle name is Spencer, if that makes you feel any better.” There’s another loud, discordant noise off from the direction of the camera and the set piece that the crew and photographer are huddling around, and another frustrated groan rises up from the group like a little black cloud of despair. “That can’t be good,” Johnny says.

“Definitely not. I think this is going to be a very long night.”

“Well, in that case…” Johnny twists around on the stool, looking at the gaming tables behind them. He leans over, and Jess is suddenly fascinated by the way his back twists and curves while he reaches for the table, a sleek expanse of golden skin that slips all too easily over defined musculature. When he twists back upright to face her, she sees that he’s got a pack of cards in his hand. He hefts it once, giving her a sly look. “What do you think about Go Fish?”

Jess swipes the cards out of his hand, cracks open the package, and slides the cards out. She shuffles them rapidly, with enough flourishes that she knows it’ll impress him. “The game is poker, five card stud. Loser buys the winner the biggest, greasiest hamburger in Atlantic City.” She holds the well shuffled cards out to Johnny, who takes them with another arched eyebrow.

“Game on,” he says.


	2. July 4th, 2012

 

With a light sigh, Jess closes the door to her building behind her and sits down on the small stoop. The party’s still going strong on the roof, with everyone getting merrier and merrier in anticipation of the fireworks that are about to start in twenty minutes, but all she needs right now is a few minutes to just breathe.

And maybe sneak a cigarette, which totally contradicts the breathing part of it, but whatever. It’s a lingering holdover from her modeling days, when all she subsisted on was black coffee, cigarettes, and carrot sticks to keep her weight under control. It wasn’t the smartest plan, she knows, but it was a bandwagon thing she wasn’t brave enough to jump off of at the time. She tells the models who work for the same agency that she currently does (in a more assistive, administrative capacity - her days of being in front of the camera are long past) to not even pick up the habit, but she can’t help but feel slightly hypocritical when she does.

The first puff is chased by a sip from her beer, just as another cheer echoes from somewhere off in the distance. It’s the first 4th of July since the aliens invaded New York City, after all, so it only stands to reason that the celebrations would be a bit more boisterous than usual, Jess thinks.

And she thought the big green monster running rampant on her college campus a couple years back was crazy. Actually, said monster seemed to help out when the aliens attacked, if she’s remembering all of the news reports right. Jess just shakes her head and has some more beer. “The world is very strange,” she mumbles.

“That’s for damn sure.”

Jess doesn’t quite jump out of her skin at the sudden voice, but it’s a close thing. Unfortunately, she’d recognize that voice anywhere, and she rolls her eyes before glaring up at the sudden presence of Johnny Storm in front of her. “What the hell are you doing here?” Because she was pretty sure that while Johnny had a lot of issues, stalking wasn’t one of them.

“Your landlord’s invited a select group of the glitterati over for a wild and crazy holiday celebration,” Johnny says, leaning back against the brick wall of the apartment building and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Why am I not surprised that you know the trust fund baby?”

“Call him a friend of a friend.”

She shakes her head, and shoves the cigarette in her mouth once more. “Johnny, what do you want?” A loud, thundering crash comes from her left, quickly followed by a sharp burst of red and white over the tops of the buildings. Huh, the fireworks. Guess she’d been out here longer than she’d thought.

Johnny nods, and looks across the alley. “Can I sit?” he asks, waving a hand at the stoop. Jess just shuffles over to make some room. He sits down, and Jess is almost relieved to note that he leaves a respectable amount of space between them. “You know, we were friends once,” Johnny starts, then runs a hand back through his hair as he stares up at another firework bursting in the sky, a cascade of green and blue.

“Yeah, but some friendships aren’t meant to last.” She resists the urge to look over to see what his face looks like, just keeps her eyes on the fireworks instead. “Circle of life, and all that.”

“Says the one who told me to go rot in an iceberg.”

“You fucking started it.” Jess sucks on her cigarette until it’s burned down to the filter, then stubs it out viciously on the pavement. “You said I couldn’t hack it in the real world, so I came crawling back to a job and an industry that I couldn’t stand. And despite what you may think, I’m no coward, not by a long shot.”

She hears him pause for a moment. “Yeah, I was wrong about that. And I’m sorry.”

Dammit, she will not cry. “Man, you could have said that last year and saved me months of anger,” Jess says instead, taking a sip of beer to disguise the sudden lump in her throat.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Johnny look over at her, one eyebrow arched up. “Has anyone ever told you that you are really good at holding a grudge?”

“Constantly.” She looks fully at him, taking in the way he’s chewing slightly on his lower lip, and how he keeps rubbing his hands on his jeans. “Is that why you came here? To apologize?”

Johnny nods once, sharply. “Yeah. I guess...you know, I was thinking the other day, especially after the whole police station thing, and I came to the conclusion that I don’t have a lot of people that I can actually consider friends. And we were friends, real friends once. I wouldn’t mind trying again.”

The fireworks are still going off above them, but it’s easier to tune them out now. “Why now?” Jess asks. “Is it just because we both got hauled to the cop shop and had to spend the entire night sorting out other people’s messes?”

Johnny just purses his lips and shrugs, which for some reason Jess finds unbearably funny. It’s too hard to bite back the laughter, and she collapses back on the stoop in a pile of giggles. For a moment it feels like old times again, when everything was young and bright and complex. “Man, we’re getting old,” she mumbles.

“Says the girl who’s five years younger than I am.”

“I am all woman, thank you very much.” Jess straightens up and tries to sober up, breathing deep through her nose until the laughter subsides. “I can’t make any promises,” she says. “But I can try.”

“That’s all I’m asking for.” Johnny smacks his palms on his jeans, and pushes himself hastily to his feet. “All right, good chat, we’ll have to do it again soon,” he says, the words rushing out of his mouth.

Jess smirks, looking up at him. “The trust fund baby’s known for having blow-outs. Don’t make me have to call the cops on you.” It’s an idle threat; she knows that it would take a lot more than just a loud party for her to actually call the police on her landlord, of all people (he would totally deserve it, but she’s not taking the chance that he wouldn’t raise their rent in revenge), but Johnny would probably appreciate the sentiment more than anyone else.

“It’s not a party until someone gets up close and personal with a traffic cone and the police make an appearance,” Johnny calls as he walks back up the alleyway.

“I’m regretting this already!” she yells back.

Another firework goes off up above, all red and white and glittery. It’s been long enough that people will notice that she hasn’t been around for a bit, and they’ll start asking questions. Jess pushes herself to her feet and heads back inside to put in a token appearance. The idea of sneaking back in, however, is quickly scuppered when Jess spots the figure perched at the top of the stairs below the one bare-bulb light that illuminates the narrow staircase.

“Well, that sounded like an interesting conversation,” Darcy Lewis says, eyebrows arched above the rims of her glasses.

Jess leans against the wall, looking far calmer than she feels right then. Her equilibrium is still rattled from the conversation, and getting caught off guard like this doesn’t help, even if Darcy means well. “Shouldn’t you be upstairs watching the fireworks?”

Darcy shakes her head. “Yeah, Steve’s not exactly a fan of fireworks, it turns out. And if you wanted to keep the conversation private, you should have remembered to shut the kitchen window first.”

“This is payback for the other kitchen window incident, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You mean the incident where you forgot to pull the blinds before you got fucked hard and happy on the kitchen table?”

Darcy’s face flushes, but she keeps it impressively straight. “Again, no idea what you’re referring to.” The straight look morphs into one that’s more concerned than anything else then, and not for the first time Jess realizes how lucky she is to have landed with some amazing friends even in the middle of all the craziness. “Seriously though, you okay?”

She looks down at her beer bottle, sweating condensation all over her hand, trying to find the right way to say everything that’s whirling about inside of her. “I...think so? I think I’m confused more than anything else. I’ll figure it out. Somehow.”

Darcy nods, reaching out a hand in Jess’s direction. “If you want, I can have Steve beat Johnny up for you. Or at least the friendship version of the shovel talk. Just so that he knows not to fuck with you and that he’s being watched.”

“I’ll let you know,” Jess laughs.


	3. August, 2012

 

Once upon a time, Jess was a model. Not a famous one, and certainly nowhere near the heights achieved by so many of those supermodels known for their faces even decades after they’ve left the runways, but she had a good career. Plenty of fashion shows and magazine editorials, advertisements and photoshoots, enough to let her fund her way through college and build up a nice little nest egg just in case. Better to be safe than sorry, she remembers thinking, and yes, that little voice in her head has always been that cynical. It’s safer that way.

She likes to think that her history gives her an edge in her current job, the one where she’s an assistant to a talent agent at a modeling agency, but as a large part of her days (and many of her nights) are spent doing the scutwork and other bidding of the Miranda Priestly wannabe, a trained monkey could probably do her job also. And scutwork would probably be the best and most pointed way to describe the current ‘mission’ she’s been sent on. Jess slurps at her smoothie with more force than is needed, given the suspicious looks she’s getting from the passersby on the sidewalk. Her boss’s smoothie is waiting in a bag by her feet (given that her boss has certain pointed views on fitness and ‘nutrition’, Jess has to set a good example for the models by following them as well, at least when she’s at work...oh joy.) In any case, she’s not quite sure how they can hear her anyway, as she’s halfway down an alley somewhere in Soho, hiding out while she waits for her delivery.

“Oh, thank god,” she mutters around her straw as she sees Johnny enter the alley, a lumpy plastic bag in one hand.

“Do I want to know why you sent me all the way down to Canal Street to pick up some suspicious knock-offs?” he says, holding up the bag like it’s done something to personally offend him.

She takes the bag, opening it quickly to make sure that the bags her contact had promised her were all there, looking fresh and shiny enough to be the actual things. “I’m desperate and that you were literally the only person I could get a hold of at two p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon.”

“Hence the sudden spate of Twitter DMs from you.”

“Exactly.”

Johnny frowns, bracing one hand on his hip. “Don’t you have at least one unemployed roommate who could have run this little errand for you? Page Six is going to have a field day with this one.”

“Aw, are you worried that someone’s going to doubt your fragile masculinity?”

“No.” He smirks at her, waggling his eyebrows. “More like when Sue sees the report about me buying multiple bags she’ll ask me about just how many women I’m leading on this week.”

Jess doesn’t hold back the eye-roll. “You’re a pig, Johnny. And the only unemployed roommate I have has got better things to do than worry about whatever little issue is making my nutcase of a boss crack up.” Suddenly she sniffs at the air, getting a whiff of a fragrance that’s far more appealing than anything else naturally occurring in that alley way. “Is that a hamburger?”

When she looks down she spots another bag in Johnny’s hand, followed up by the smirk growing even wider on his face. “I was on line at Shake Shack when I got your message.” Jess just whimpers, and bites down on her straw instead of ripping the food out of his hand like her stomach is demanding.

Johnny’s phone beeps a couple of times, a loud, grating sort of noise that’s impossible to ignore. “Shit,” he says, fumbling the phone out of his pocket.

“What is it?”

“That’s the alert tone,” he says distractedly, eyes scanning the message on the screen. “And I need to get going now, before this thing gets any closer to the city.”

Jess nods, bringing the bag with the purses closer to her stomach, like it could make a shield for her if she wishes hard enough. “Okay. Go save the world, flame boy. Thanks for helping me out.”

“Anytime.”

It’s only a short walk to get back to the agency, made all the faster thanks to the worry that hurries up her steps. Yes, she’s probably not in any legitimate danger, but this is New York City, magnet for all things weird. Who knows, she may trip over a space whale crossing the street these days. But the journey is uneventful, and her boss’s smoothie is still nice and chilled when she dumps it in front of her. With a smile of thanks and a dismissive hand wave Jess is sent on her way (there is a certain etiquette to dealing with her boss, after all), and her next stop is to what’s been nicknamed the props department with the bags. “Seriously, do NOT ask where I got these,” Jess says, handing the plastic bag over to her co-worker, a short, curvy sort of woman with big, round glasses and wide brown eyes that blink behind them to the rhythm of all of her clanking bangles.

“You are a goddess, thank you,” Mercedes says, stroking the bag lovingly, then opening it and peering inside. “They look almost real. It’ll be more than enough to hold their places until the real ones get here next week. If the goddamn shippers get their shit together.”

“Not even Michael Kors would know the difference.” She gives Mercedes a small bow, then winces. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go do the dragon lady’s filing.”

Mercedes waves at her, bangles clinking away. “Have fun. And if you can find out any more information about why Keely defected, pass it along?”

That pulls Jess up short, and she turns back to Mercedes (who has already moved on to lining up the newly delivered bags on a nearby desk). “Defected? Did she find a new agency?”

Mercedes shrugs, shaking her head at the same time. “No one knows exactly, but we’re pretty sure she found herself some Eastern European sugar daddy and ran off with him in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, Christ, not again,” Jess groans.

‘Welcome to the glamorous world of fashion,’ she thinks, and even her internal voice is sarcastic these days.


	4. October, 2012

 

She doesn’t give Johnny her new(ish) cellphone number. That would be too much, too soon. He needs to earn his way back into her good graces, Jess thinks, and while she’s trying to let old grudges go it’s hard to break the habit of years. But even so, even in a city as big as New York, their circles are surprisingly small and intersect so much more than she thinks once she pays attention to it.

Which isn’t totally a bad thing, as she’s still got so many more questions for him. Attempting to wrap her head around everything that’s’ happened in the last few months, both in her personal life and in the world, is enough to set her spinning and she could use a little balance again.

And speaking of weirdness…

Jess winces mightily as she hides behind a desk at the currently besieged bank, covering her ears to protect them from the screeching metal noise that results when Ben Grimm reduces a Doombot to powder. She’d had to bring a deposit there for work (why they couldn’t have done it electronically or called a courier, she doesn’t know), but about ten seconds after she’d handed the money over to the clerk the Doctor Doom knockoffs had swarmed the bank and started blasting the place up.

While she may be curious, she’s not dumb enough to ask a Doombot what it wants and felt that running and hiding was a far safer plan. So instead, she huddles behind a desk and watches the show as the Fantastic Four lay waste to the invaders. She’s never seen anything like it, really.

Sure, most people these days have seen the superheroes fight by now, but it’s mostly through filmed news reports and blurry viral videos of whatever secretive things the so-called Avengers have been doing since the battle of Manhattan. Hell, she’d been in the city when that battle had happened, down in Battery Park, but the crew hustled them quickly out of town and over to Brooklyn before anything had reached them. But it’s not often that people get the chance to see them fight up close and personal. And it’s kind of fascinating to watch Johnny as he fights. The smart mouth and the snarkiness are there, sure, because the quips are flying as fast as the bots are. There’s a focus there, however, that she’s never seen from him before, not even when attempting to chase down some girl who wouldn’t even give him the time of day.

‘I guess we all have to grow up sometime,’ Jess thinks, just as she grabs the little boy standing next to her as he tries to run out into the battle that’s being waged on the bank floor.

“Mommy!” he sobs, barely heard over the din as his arm reaches out to where his mother is across the room. Jess looks over and finds the woman easily; she’s the only one whose eyes aren’t on the Doombots and are instead focused right on her son. Jess pulls the boy into her lap, sheltering him with her body just in case, and gives the mother a firm nod. The mother just nods back, still looking worried and panicked, and Jess knows she won’t be able to do anything about that.

The fight’s over fast, at least, and it’s not at all long before the little boy squirms out of her arms and runs like hell over to his mother, who meets him halfway across the room, remains of Doombots be damned. Then the local police all corral them over to whatever triage center’s been set up in the middle of the street to handle any civilian injuries. While this is happening she passes right by Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic himself, as one of his arms stretches further than (apparently) humanly possible as he retrieves a piece of bot and waves it in the face of a sour faced man in a military uniform.

Jess is passed through medical quickly, as having a pulled muscle in her calf from where she’d twisted herself to get behind that desk as fast as possible doesn’t exactly rate on the scale of injuries. Still, she supposes she’s lucky; it’s all too easy to remember the nasty bump and the ensuing bandages that Darcy had sported right after Manhattan. And her leg’s feeling strong enough to stumble onwards at least, even if she is totally going to take this opportunity to head home early for the day. She even got the EMTs to call up her boss and vouch that she was injured enough to require rest.

As she walks by, she can’t help but catch sight of Johnny, surrounded by a pack of (mostly female) fans, signing autographs and posing for as many selfies as he’s asked for. He leans in with a cocky grin, one arm wrapping tightly around some young girl’s shoulder, and poses eagerly for the phone she’s holding up in her hands. It’s easy to pinpoint the moment, however, that Johnny catches sight of her, somewhere in between selfies with a sharpie still clutched in his hand. Johnny’s grin gets even cockier, she’d swear, and he tosses off a jaunty salute in her direction.

Jess salutes him back with a single, upraised finger and a smirk of her own as she walks past him to try and get away from the chaos. Johnny’s responding cackle echoes in the air behind her, and she allows her smirk to get a little bit wider.

Then she slips down a side street, and detours into a narrow alley between buildings, and allows herself to shake apart, just for a little bit. Aliens and Doombots and what the everloving fuck, 21st century? She digs through her purse and finds her cigarettes, lighting one up with a hand that is most certainly not shaking (even if it does feel a little wobbly at the moment). For the next minute, she focuses on her breathing, on the sensation of inhaling deep and blowing smoke out of her nostrils up at the blue sky, seeing it dissipate into the clouds above.

The sudden rush of heat and the whiff of ash invading the alleyway makes Jess squeeze her eyes shut, because she knows what’s causing it and it doesn’t help the panic that’s trying to fight its way out of her body. “What is it, Johnny?” she mumbles around her cigarette, filter clutched loosely between pink painted lips.

“You did good back there,” he says, close enough to make her jump halfway out of her skin if she hadn’t been working so hard at calming herself down.

“I didn’t do anything,” Jess scoffs, exhaling smoke once more.

Johnny leans against the wall and knocks his shoulder against hers, making her peel her eyes open and give him a weak glare. “Yeah, that’s bullshit,” he says. “You kept your head cool even while Doom’s crazy bots were trying to blow the roof off, and you kept that kid from getting himself blasted to bits. That’s not nothing.” He moves in closer, so that Jess is the only one that can hear him, even though there’s no one else anywhere around them. “And I am really sorry that I ever called you a coward, because you definitely aren’t.”

She looks over at Johnny, finds herself close enough to his face to see the grease and grime left on his skin from the rampaging bots. But he’s not lying, and while she’s not sure how she knows this, she knows that it is the total truth. “Thanks.”


	5. December, 2012

 

While her job does certainly feature some glamorous aspects, the parts where she spends her nights shadowing the models who have gone out to the clubs (at the request of the dragon lady, of course, because she’s apparently convinced the models can’t take care of themselves. Which definitely wasn’t a part of the job description when she was hired, but the job market sucks and when would she even have time to look for a new job?) is not one of them. More than a few of those nights have ended Jess up in the exact same position she’s in now, which is holding back the hair of a girl as she pukes up numerous lemon drop martinis in the alley behind the club, just beyond the service entrance. “It’s all right, sweetie, just get it out,” Jess says, patting the girl on the back while she tries her hardest not to look at the pile of vomit. It’s also December in New York City, which is inevitably cold and damp, and it’s all she can do not to shiver her ass off while waiting for her charge to get the worst of it out of her system.

“I didn’t mean to,” the girl sobs out when she’s got her breath back. “It’s just so hard without Keely here.” Her shoulders twitch, and she heaves forward once more.

Jess grimaces and shuffles back a step, trying to keep from getting any of the mess on her heels. “I know,” she says once the vomiting has stopped again. “But she said she’d e-mail you, right?” It's been a couple of months now since Keely left and no one's heard word one from her. But it's probably prudent not to bring that up right at this moment.

The back door to the club creaks open on rusty hinges, and Jess looks up to see Johnny and his date of the week sauntering out of there, his arm loosely tossed around the woman’s shoulders. It’s not all that surprising to see him, not given his social butterfly tendencies and her usual working locations, but there’s something about his presence right there and then that unsettles her. She braces herself for whatever smart mouthed comment is forthcoming, because neither one of them can apparently hold back the snark properly, even with this little detente they’ve currently got going on.

Johnny whispers quickly to his companion, then walks over to Jess. “You need any help?” he asks, just as the model heaves up again. Jess grimaces, shuffling her feet away once more.

“No, we’re good. She just had too much to drink.”

“I know that pain all too well,” Johnny nods.

“And as soon as we’re done here,” Jess continues, patting the girl on the back, “I’m packing all of them up and we’re heading home.”

She feels the girl stiffen beneath her hand, and her head jerk up. “But it’s only--”

“Yeah, I think you’re done for the night,” Jess sighs. Her eyes trail over to where Johnny’s companion is leaning against the opposite wall of the alley, a slight frown on her face and her eyes glued to her phone. “You might want to go take care of your date before you lose her to Facebook. TMZ will have a field day spotting you with drunken underage girls at a club.”

The model straightens up, bracing her own arms on the wall. “I am not underage,” she mutters into the bricks, still looking altogether too green in the face.

“In Europe, maybe,” Jess fires back. “That’s a hell of a fake ID you have.”

Johnny claps his hands together once, an evil looking smirk on his face that Jess is far more prepared to handle than the naked concern he’d shown before. “As much as I’d like to stick around for the catfight, ladies, I do have places to be and people to entertain.”

“I’ll give you a fucking catfight,” Jess says, raising a fist at him (even though they both know that she’d never actually throw a punch. She’s more inclined to kick with the four inch heels anyway). “I have four brothers, and you can damn well bet Mom taught me how to fight back against them."

He laughs, and backs away, hands raised in the air. “Don’t worry, I know when I’m beat. I’ll see you around,” Johnny says as he walks back over to his companion, arm around her shoulders once more as he leads them out of the alley.

“God, I need some aspirin,” Jess sighs, squeezing her eyes shut to hold off the burgeoning headache. She turns back to the model, who’s flipped so that her back is resting against the wall...actually, she’s pretty sure the wall is the only thing holding her up right now. “How you holding up?”

“I think I could go for another drink,” the girl says, even though her head’s lolling and her eyes are squeezed shut.

“You know you have a shoot tomorrow afternoon.”

“Maybe I’ll go for some sleep instead.”

“Good idea.”


	6. January, 2013

 

Jess isn’t quite sure how exactly she ended up in this situation.

They were fighting about something. She’s not even sure what they were fighting about, but it was just like the bad old days where they got into screaming matches in public settings (even two thousand miles away when she was on a business trip in Miami). Jess had hoped that maybe this little truce between them would hold, that the fighting would stop, but that was probably too much to ask for, she remembers thinking.

After that things got...weird. She knows that she was the one who left the club first, so unbelievably pissed off at whatever it is she can’t remember that she ended up taking a fire door outside that poured her out into a dingy alleyway behind the building. She also knows that Johnny had followed her outside, saying something about pulling her pigtails. She knows that she yelled back, because she’s not the type to stand for any sort of shit. And then…

Then.

Jess doesn’t know who moved first. Maybe it was her, which is entirely possible (her memories of the incident are, admittedly, a bit fuzzy). But what she does know is that one minute they were yelling back and forth and the next minute her back’s up against the wall in that dingy alley, Johnny’s mouth sealed to hers and his hips pushing their way between her legs. Her hands claw at his back, but instead of shoving him away all she seems to want to do is pull him closer.

Johnny’s hands are there, pushing her mini-dress up so that he can palm her ass, pulling her near enough that she can feel his dick up against her, burning hot even through the jeans. And Jess knows that she should push him back, tell him to leave her the fuck alone, because that’s the way they always do things. Her body’s got a mind of its own at the moment, however, because her hands are reaching down to undo Johnny’s fly and shove his pants and boxer briefs out of the way.

And then he’s inside of her, hot enough to burn, and fuck, does he feel good. Jess’s head falls back against the wall, her curls getting stuck to the brick as she brings Johnny’s head close enough to mouth against the tendons in her neck. His thrusts are slow and measured, forceful enough to make her gasp with every push inside.

God, this doesn’t make sense, she thinks. Hell, she doesn’t even really like sex that isn’t with herself and her favorite toys, so why the hell does it seem like Johnny knows every button to push to send her fucking flying? Jess leans in to kiss him again, liking the way his lips part easily for her tongue.

Maybe it’s not worth overthinking. Maybe she should just go with what her body wants and follow what feels good for the moment. The setting is less than ideal, but they’re hidden from the fire exit by a dumpster and thank god no one’s come out and caught them yet. Which is good because Jess doesn’t want to stop and she likes those little whimpering noises that Johnny makes every so often.

When he opens his eyes again, her breath catching on the edge of one particularly sharp thrust, Jess could swear that she sees fire banked inside them, the edges of the blue irises bleeding gold towards the pupils. Suddenly, it’s all too much for her, and her legs twitch around Johnny’s hips, trying to bring him as deeply inside her as possible. Her skin feels like it’s ready to split apart, that tell-tale shaking that precedes her orgasm.

Johnny pushes in fast and hard now, the angle scraping against her clit just so, and it’s enough to set Jess off. She tosses her head back as her body arches, blood pounding as the sensations flood her system. Then she’d swear she can feel him spasm inside her, just as he buries his face in her shoulder to muffle a sharp cry.

Oh, holy hell.

It takes a few moments for her blood to stop rushing, for her pulse to stop pounding in her veins. Jess lifts her head off of the wall just as Johnny pulls his head off of her shoulder. Their eyes meet, both wide and slightly incredulous at the thought of what’s just happened between them.

“Fuck,” they say, almost as one.

It doesn’t take them long from there to separate, for Johnny to toss the used condom into the dumpster as Jess pulls her dress back down. The skirt was short to begin with, barely peeking out from the edge of her blazer, but she’ll be lucky if she can salvage it now. Brick is hell on fabric anyway. They don’t say anything as they walk out of the alleyway, spilling out onto the street which is still full of people moving between clubs and bars even in the wee hours of the morning. Such is life in Miami, Jess knows. It’s not the first time she’s had to travel there and spend a late night holing up in a club because of work. It is the first time she’s been fucked in an alley, though. She shakes her head, trying to push the thoughts away once more.

Johnny walks with her until she finds the garage her rental car’s parked in, following her up the stairs and through the darkened rows of vehicles until she spots the rental. Jess clicks the lock and opens the door, ready to get in until Johnny’s hand lands on the top of it, boxing her in. “What happened back there…” he begins.

Jess just shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nothing happened,” she says. She’s not sure if she’s trying to convince Johnny or herself, however.

But there’s a relief that appears in Johnny’s eyes, that they’re not going to make a big deal out of this. That as soon as Jess drives off everything between them will go back to how it was, a tentative friendship that devolves into them constantly nagging the hell out of each other and amusing everyone else around them in the process (they both know it’s farcical by now, the way they act like eight year olds around each other, but it’s been so long that they’ve nearly forgotten how to behave any other way). Which is good. It’s the way it should be.

“Give me your cell phone,” Johnny says, holding a hand out.

“What?” Jess says, brow wrinkling.

“Just gimme,” he says, waggling his fingers. Jess sighs and fishes her phone out of her bra (by some miracle it hadn’t been lost during their earlier activities), then unlocks it and hands it over to him. “Text me when you get back to your hotel,” he says, fingers flying over the screen as he programs his number in there.

She doesn’t ask how he knows that she’s not staying at the same hotel as the models, that she’s staying at a far more affordable place further inland because the modeling agency is cheap as all hell when it comes to employees who aren’t in front of a camera for them. That it’d take her more of a drive to get to her bed than just driving to a hotel a little ways down the beach. “All right,” Jess says, taking the phone back. She turns and slips into the car, starting the engine up with a flick of her wrist. “Good night,” she says, nodding at Johnny.

“Good night.”

Johnny takes a few steps back, safely out of the way as Jess backs the car out of the spot and heads towards the exit.

Half an hour later she’s in her hotel room, heels kicked off and relaxing back into the pillows of her bed. Jess shifts on the bed a bit, feeling the lingering ache in her shoulders and her lower back from where they were pressed against the wall. It’s enough to remind her to send that text to Johnny, however. The text is quick and succinct, letting him know that she’s back at the hotel and about to fall asleep.

Fall asleep in her busted up dress, no less. Her phone dings with a response right before she succumbs to sleep, and her last conscious act is to read the message. ‘Good. Sweet dreams. I know mine will be thanks to you,’ he says.

Jess just snorts and rolls over into her pillow. “Keep dreaming, bucko,” she mutters as she closes her eyes. The last thing that she thinks before sleep takes over is that what happened this night, whatever they want to call it, can never, ever happen again. It’s a decision that she can live with very easily.

So why is it that a couple of weeks later, back in a slushy, cold New York City, she finds herself straddling Johnny in the front seat of his Porsche, pushing him back into the leather as she practically sucks his face off?

“This is such a bad idea,” Jess mutters against his mouth, smoothing her hands over his chest and grinding her hips down on his.

“I am the king of bad ideas,” Johnny replies, dashing his hands back through her blonde curls and pulling her even closer to him.

She likes the way he feels beneath her far too much to even consider stopping.

But Jess tells herself again that this shouldn’t happen, that as much as she likes Johnny’s hands on her (and who even knew that was a thing!) it is such a bad, bad idea. That and, when her friends find out, she won’t hear the end of it, especially after how much she’d harped about him being a jackass in the past.

All right, he’s still a jackass. Maybe that’s just her type.

To a certain degree, she’s almost proud of their adaptability and their, uh, flexibility, so to speak. She’s got roommates who, while they keep a respectful distance in general, would definitely raise a few eyebrows at the sight of such a famous person going in and out of their apartment. Darcy would probably either point and laugh or smack Jess upside the head for this entire situation, so it's probably a good thing she's in Washington DC now, far away from the chaos. Darcy moving out was a bit of a surprise when it had happened at the end of November, but apparently Steve had gotten a transfer and he wasn’t moving away without her next to him. Despite the pain in the ass that it was to find a new roommate to take over Darcy’s share of the rent, it was actually pretty sweet and made Jess’s tender insides feel all mushy and romantic. And Johnny lives in the same apartment building as his sister and the rest of his team, which would just be asking for trouble. It’s surprisingly easy, Jess realizes, for them to find places to hook up.

Gah, the term even feels weird in her brain just thinking of it, but there’s no better way to call it.

Then there was the time at that charity gala for women in the STEM fields, maybe a month and a half after the Porsche incident. Jess wasn’t even supposed to have been there - the Miranda Priestly wannabe usually had a different assistant for her non-work related ventures (and where does she get the money to pay for all these assistants anyway? Jess has to wonder, because she's pretty sure this latest guy definitely doesn't work for the agency.), but he’d come down with some sort of death flu and Jess was assigned the ‘overtime.’ Still, it was an excuse to get dressed up all fancy...and to see Johnny in a tux too. Although honestly, her biggest curiosity was wanting to find out the name of The Thing’s tailor - whoever it was, they were a genius and a miracle worker with finely woven wool.

However, she wasn’t thinking about any of that when she followed Johnny and his tipped head into one of the many coatrooms that dotted the hotel, when his hands skimmed her dress up past her hips and she was busy undoing his trousers. Jess can only hope that no one notices the teeth marks in the lapel of his tux where she muffled her cries when she came, because just beyond that door was his family, her boss, and a good chunk of the Manhattan glitterati just waiting for the next tidbit of gossip to come their way.

“Why haven’t we stopped this yet?” she murmurs, the words half buried in his lapel.

Johnny’s hand lands on the back of her head, cupping the riot of blonde curls there. “I don’t know,” he says, equally as softly.

No one notices when they sneak out of the coatroom, looking surprisingly unrumpled and sliding easily back into the crowd of people like they’d never left.

(No one notices anything about them sneaking around, but Sue Storm-Richards does notice something about her brother that night that strikes her as odd. Johnny has any number of society girls in painted-on dresses sniffing around him looking for a good time, which normally he would be more than willing to provide. And yet on this night, he flirts and smiles and mugs for the cameras...and goes home alone. Looking as content as he ever is.

It’s quite unusual, and Sue’s determined to get to the bottom of it.)


	7. Late February, 2013

 

Jess is pretty experienced by now at sleeping just about anywhere, and sleeping in a variety of different conditions (sharing dormitories with both models and college students will do that), and normally, it takes a lot to rouse her out of a sound sleep. But the insistent ‘tap-tap-tap’ that keeps breaking through her slumber is out of place, a noise that hasn’t been assimilated by her brain yet. There’s also the sinking feeling that the noise is related to that orange glow that’s visible through the thin skin of her eyelids.

She opens her eyes and the orange glow becomes even brighter, filtering in through the sheer curtains around her windows. Then there’s another ‘tap’ noise, accompanied by what looks like a tiny pebble hitting the glass. Jess back a groan, tossing the covers back and stumbling her way over to the window.

To no one’s surprise, Johnny’s hovering out there in a bright ball of flame, reflecting off of the buildings and casting odd shadows in the night. “Will you tone it down?” she hisses as she levers the screen open. “My neighbors are nosy as fuck.” And she should know, she’s one of those nosy neighbors herself, especially considering what she’s seen in the building across the way.

Johnny just smirks, turns the flames off from the waist up, and leans forward so he can rest his arms on the fire escape. “Come on, you know you’re glad to see me.”

Jess wrinkles her nose, wincing. “You smell like ash.”

“Perks of the job.”

“This is a bit worse than your usual eau du bonfire.” It’s that additional smell that makes Jess take a closer look at Johnny. She spots a rip in one of the seams of his suit, that the small lines on his face seem to be drawn a little more tightly than usual, and a light, barely visible crust of blood embedded in the cuticles of the hand that’s currently holding onto her fire escape. “You picked a hell of a time for a booty call,” she sighs, backing away from the window and waving him inside.

“It’s not a booty call,” he says, vaulting himself over the railing and landing on the fire escape with a clatter. The flames die out quickly, and then he hops the windowsill to head inside. The look on Jess’s face is entirely skeptical as he lands on the carpet with a soft thud. “Well, not entirely,” Johnny concedes, waving a hand in the air. He tries to move close to Jess again, hands reaching out to grasp her hips, but a palm on his chest and another wrinkle of her nose keeps him at a safe distance.

That look in his eyes though. She’s not sure why, but she’d swear that there’s more there than just the desire to get laid.

“Shower first,” Jess says, her voice sounding stronger and more firm than she feels right then, “and then maybe I’ll consider it.”

Johnny pauses for a moment, then nods. “Fair enough.”

Jess leads him down the hall and to the bathroom, feeling incredibly lucky that most of her roommates sleep like the dead. At least, she hopes. One of them has what she calls ‘artist’s hours’ that kept her up all hours of the night, but more often than not she works in her studio and not at home. Once in the bathroom she tosses a spare towel at him, and Johnny plucks it out of the air, catching it right before it smacks him in the face. “The jasmine body wash is mine. You can use that one.”

She heads back to her bedroom and crawls back under the covers, sighing heavily as her head hits the pillow. It’s not at all Johnny’s usual style, to show up unannounced (they’ve both become very good at subtle, suggestive text messages in the last couple of months), but something...he didn’t look right, she thinks. Tired, maybe? She’s seen more than her share of models in her life that get that worn, drawn out, stretched thin look after a few days on set that demands a thick layer of makeup to disguise those traces of sleepless nights.

‘What the hell happened?’ Jess thinks, just as she closes her eyes.

The soft combined scents of jasmine and smoke rouse Jess out of her drowsiness. The bedcovers are lifted back, and a hot, heavy weight slips in next to her. His bare skin slides against her, an unfamiliar sensation that’s a startling change from their usual activities. She rolls her head on the pillow, though her eyes stay shut. “What happened?” she mumbles.

“The usual,” Johnny says, quietly. “Crazy dictator with an inflated sense of diplomatic immunity combined with robot clones equals a fun yet tiring time.”

“Ah.” Any more pertinent or coherent words are near impossible; she’s almost fully asleep once more. That’s what happens when she’s woken up in the middle of the night.

He tucks his head into her shoulder, the wet spikes of his hair leaving damp imprints on her shirt. “I just…” Johnny mumbles, the words getting lost in her shoulder. “Don’t wanna think about superheroes right now.”

“Mmm. Sleep instead,” Jess slurs out, tilting her neck so she can give him a gentle headbutt before nodding off.

When Jess comes to again, it’s a couple of hours later and Johnny’s spooned up behind her, arms like an octopus around her waist and his hips tilted into hers. She’s not used to sharing a bed with anyone at all, not like this (sharing a bed at a childhood sleepover, or crashing with another model in one of those terribly overcrowded models’ apartments is an entirely different thing), and it’s incredibly strange to be waking up with someone else. Especially this someone. Even when he’s not all on fire, Johnny runs incredibly hot, so she’s not surprised to see that all of the blankets have been kicked down to the bottom of the bed.

Still, she feels...almost safe. Which is weirding her out much more than she’d like to admit.

Johnny shifts behind her, his pelvis pressing up against her again, and she’s fairly certain that’s not his wallet that’s digging into her backside. Jess twists around in his arms, squirming enough that he groans into her ear, hands flexing on her hips. “Careful,” she whispers, placing a finger across his lips as his eyes flutter open. “Don’t wake the roommates.” Johnny nods, just as her hand slips away from his mouth towards his boxer briefs.


	8. March 2013

              

Jess is determined to keep her cool as she hurries up the narrow, polished metal stairs after the club manager, even though she’s certain the uncomfortable grimace is pretty much frozen on her face now. The manager, Christian, doesn’t notice, however, as he’s too busy manhandling Johnny and making sure he doesn’t drunkenly stumble back down the stairs before they get to the VIP room. “I’m not even supposed to be here today,” she grumbles under her breath, which is entirely true.

The last thing she likes to do on her days off is spend time at a club, but the trust fund baby landlord had rented out the space for a party (he claimed it was a birthday party for one of his artist friends from the studio below their apartment but Jess had her doubts) and he’d invited her along by saying her name had already been added to the guest list. Jess had said she’d show up only if he’d fix the sink in the bathroom that had broken yet again, and was determined to hold him to it. So now she was stuck at this stupid thing. All right, the party wasn’t too terrible overall, even if the music was a bit predictable. The appetizers being passed around were pretty damn fabulous, Jess had to admit, and she was always a sucker for anything that resembled a miniature pie.

It wasn’t Johnny’s presence that caused the party to go south, or even that he’d already had a few drinks before they’d spotted each other. Frankly, seeing him there wasn’t that much of a surprise, not anymore. Social circles, and all that. Really, he’d seemed to be in a good mood for most of the night. Right up until the point when they’d been standing at the bar getting drink refills, chatting idly and pleasantly. Then he’d started mouthing off to the guy standing next to her.

All right, the other guy may have been a bit drunk (more than a bit, her internal commentary track fills in), and had been hovering over her, but Jess wasn’t getting any threatening vibes off of him. The guy was persistent though, she’d give him that. When she turns back to the bar to retrieve her martini, virulently pink and sticky and sweet, just what she was wanting that night, she hears Johnny say, “Hey, man, lay off of her and move on.”

The other guy barks out a harsh laugh, and Jess cuts her eyes back over to him. The guy’s face has gone from open and amiable to something a bit more cold and calculating. “What the hell business of it is yours?” he says to Johnny, beer bottle dangling loosely in his fingers. He places his free hand on Jess’s back and leans in with a grin. “Am I bothering you, honey?”

Ugh, and now the guy was just reminding her of some of those creeper photographers and their tendencies to hit on the barely legal models with the excuses that they could make them famous in return for certain favors. She stiffens her shoulders, ready to tell him off and to take his beer soaked breath far away from her, when a thin line of fire jets its way across the bar to the guy’s cocktail napkin, setting it alight with a sharp burst of flame, and close enough to the guy’s hand to make him jerk his fingers back with a hiss and a glare.

And that’s about when, to the best of Jess’s recollection, that the shit really hit the fan.

The guy’s hand falls away from her back, and she notices that his grip on the beer bottle shifts slightly. Then, almost too quickly for her to notice it, he knocks the bottle against the bar, leaving behind a jagged, sharp edge, and reaches over her shoulder to jab the glass right at Johnny’s face. Then, just as Jess drops to a crouch because she needs to get the hell out of there as fast as possible there’s another burst of flame, the sharp warmth from it hitting her right in the face.

It only takes seconds for the bouncers and Christian to rush over there, separating the two of them and keeping the guy’s friends from stepping in to ‘help’. Christian gets his grip around Johnny’s arm pretty fast and propels him towards the VIP rooms, and Jess stumbles to her feet to rush after them.

Because what the hell, Johnny?

“Why the fuck are you coming after me? He’s the one who started it!” Johnny blurts out as Christian propels him into the VIP room. Jess slips inside and shuts the door behind them. This room’s private enough, and not booked for the night given the boring, bright fluorescent lights on above and the empty extra bar space in the corner. But there are couches and tables, and a giant white rug that probably took hundreds of sheeps worth of wool to knit.

“Yeah, and don’t think I didn’t see you antagonize him into it,” Christian fires back, practically bristling at the words.   He calms down slightly, tugging at the bottom of his sleek suit jacket with the red and white seersucker stripes to straighten it. It’s a great compliment to his dark skin and the cigarette trousers, Jess thinks, then mentally berates herself for lapsing into fashion brain once again. ‘Not the time, lady,’ she tells herself.

“But he was the one who technically threw the first punch, which is why he and his buddies are now out on the curb and your pasty white ass is in here to cool the fuck down,” Christian continues, running a hand back over his hair.

“As soon as he calms down and we sober up,” Jess says, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against one of the polished walls, “I’ll get him out of here.” She looks out at the one wall in the room that’s composed almost entirely of those one way mirrors, allowing them to look out at the writhing mass of the bar and the dance floor below, but keeping any of them from peering into the mythical VIP rooms, and sighs heavily.  

Christian nods, gesturing at the bar. “There’s some water back there if you want it,” he says, then points a finger at Johnny. “You’re lucky I like you.”

“Thanks,” Johnny says. Christian gives them both another look, then leaves the room, closing the door firmly behind them.

As soon as Christian is gone Jess turns to stare at Johnny, eyes wide and mouth in a disbelieving gape. “What the hell was that?!”

Because really, she’s at a total loss. While Johnny may always have been a hot-head (her inner voice begs pardon for the awful pun), his usual method of fighting back when it wasn’t an apocalypse level fight was a snarky tongue, not roasting some douchebag in a club because he was getting a little fresh. It’s not making any sense whatsoever, and Jess is ready to blame that for the headache brewing behind her eyes rather than the multiple martinis she’s had. She rubs at her temples, and is inordinately pleased to find that her eyebrows are still intact (not that she had thought they’d been burned off, but there was always that lingering, irrational fear…).

Johnny just crosses his arms over his chest, and seems to look everywhere but at her. “I’m waiting,” Jess says.

Finally he looks back up at her, mouth pursed and brow furrowed. “You didn’t see what that guy was saying behind your back,” Johnny says, feet shuffling on the fluffy rug. “Or the hand gestures he was making to his buddies. About you.”

Jess rolls her eyes. “So you walk away and don’t give them the time of day, not try to set their cocktail napkin on fire!”

Johnny’s mouth gets even harder, pretty much frowning now, and he takes a couple of steps in her direction. “That guy was talking about you like you were a piece of meat, something to be fucked and then thrown away. Now I know I’ve had my moments and made my share of shit moves, especially when it comes to women, but what this guy was saying? It was so far below the bottom of the barrel it was in the damn sewers.”

For the briefest moment, Jess sees red, flaring hot and bright out the corners of her eyes. She stomps over to Johnny, practically bristling with unchecked emotion. Her heels put them pretty much at a height with each other, and she glares him right in the face. “It’s not the first time I’ve dealt with some objectifying asshole,” she spits out. “I can handle myself, you know that.”

“Yeah? What about when his friends start ‘helping’?”

“As they didn’t even get that far before the bouncers showed up, it’s a non-issue.” She shakes her head, staring down at the rug, a clean swath of crisp white amongst all the dark furnishings in the room. “I’m a big girl, Johnny. Shit like that’s going to happen, and keeping a cool head and handling it? That’s what I do.”

“I know,” he says, almost so quietly that she can’t hear it.

But she does, and there’s a tone in his voice that gives her pause, sends a shiver down her back in an entirely unfamiliar way. Her brain spins, making her look up at him in near wonderment and see him staring right back at her. “Are you jealous?” she blurts out before her brain can catch up with her tongue.

Johnny blinks a few times, rapidly, like he didn’t quite comprehend what she’d said. But before she can apologize for those hasty words, he takes her face in his hands and kisses her roughly. Her mouth parts easily for his tongue, and she fists her hands in his shirt. There’s no delicacy in this kiss, it’s fast and almost bruising and it takes Jess’s brain as far away from the conversation as possible. She has the vague passing thought that this is neither the time nor the place for this, that while the room is generally private the door isn’t locked and someone could walk in at any moment.

But then Johnny’s shirt hits the floor, quickly followed by her top and bra, bright splashes of color on the white rug. One of Jess’s heels slip in the deep, fuzzy pile, and she starts to go down with a hasty yelp. Johnny catches her by the hips though, easing her way to the floor and following right after. He leans in to kiss her again, hands stroking down her bare torso to the button of her pants. She kicks off the troublesome heels and helps him shimmy the tight pants down her legs.

Everything is moving so damn fast, she knows, but stopping or slowing down is the last thing she wants to do. Not when his skin is slick and hot against hers, the vague scent of smoke and cologne is taking up residence in her nose, and his panting breaths are being eagerly drunk up by her mouth. But…but, but, but…

She’s got to stake her claim.

Jess wraps her legs around Johnny’s hips and then twists her entire body hard. The momentum combined with the surprise of the move is just enough to flip Johnny over, right onto his back in the rug. She sits up straight, breathing hard, staring down at his wide eyes and extremely turned on expression. Now’s not the time for softness or hesitation, she knows. So she undoes his jeans and reaches for the one emergency condom she knows he always keeps stashed in a pocket in his pants. The condom is put on hastily, because while Jess’s brain is currently somewhere in her nether regions it’s still saying that a baby is the absolute last thing she needs right now.

She grabs Johnny’s wrists and pushes them above his head. He shoots her what’s probably the filthiest smirk she’s ever seen on his face, which quickly morphs into a shuddering breath when she slides down on his cock. And then Jess begins to move, hips rocking as she squeezes her internal muscles around him.

“Oh, fuck,” Johnny moans, snapping his hips up and making her gasp. He begins to meet her thrust for thrust, and what little sense Jess had left when they’d started leaves her entirely as she gets lost in the sensations building within her body. The shivery little waves up and down her back, the tingling in her limbs, the beads of sweat on her forehead and on her shoulders that drip down towards her breasts, the swollen dampness between her legs that easily surrounds him as he pushes inside her. She slides her hands up, lacing her fingers through his and leaning down to steal another kiss from his mouth.

When her orgasm hits, it comes on fast, far faster than she would have ever expected, and it’s almost like she’s burning up from the inside in the best way possible. Jess grinds down hard on him, giving her clit that little extra pressure to encourage the aftershocks until her body just can’t take it much longer. With a gasp and a whimper she stills, slowly untangling her fingers from his. “Feel better?” Johnny asks, one eyebrow arching high on his forehead.

Jess weakly smacks his shoulder with one limp hand, rolling her eyes. She notices, however, that Johnny’s still achingly hard inside her, and she thinks she should probably do something about that. Johnny’s got his own ideas, it seems, and he sits upright, arms going around her to pull her in close. “Hang on,” he says, just before he shifts up onto his knees.

“Shit,” Jess gasps, wide-eyed, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as her balance is unsettled. It doesn’t last long, however, because a couple of seconds later she finds herself on her back and sinking into the rug. Johnny’s over her, staring down hard at her face, and it’s like she can’t breathe at the indecipherable expression there. So she runs her hands from his shoulders through his short hair, pulling him in for another sloppy kiss. “Your turn,” she mumbles against his mouth.

“Yeah,” he says, nodding right before he begins to thrust inside her once more. It’s almost overwhelming in its intensity, even though he’s not doing anything strange and new that they haven’t done before. For some reason, however, Jess’s head won’t stop spinning, full of everything she can’t comprehend, not just yet, at least. It’s far easier to focus on the physical, on the feel of Johnny inside of her and way his fingers start stroking round the curve of her breasts and that intense heat of his mouth against her neck than it is to deal with those feelings and emotions that can’t possibly be going through her head right now.

‘Just breathe,’ she reminds herself, just as she hikes her legs higher on his hips to bring him even deeper inside her. ‘Breathe.’

Maybe a breather wouldn’t be a bad idea.


	9. April, 2013

 

“This is a seriously swanky place you’ve got here,” Jess says, eyes taking in the open space full of sleek furniture and all of the other accessories of home as she follows Darcy into her new apartment. Well, relatively new. New to her, at least; Darcy had moved to DC a few months prior but this is the first time Jess has been able to take a few days off from work and make it down for a visit.

She is not running away from Johnny. Running away would imply that she’s got no intention of returning. And she will head back; this is only a short vacation away from her life for a little bit, and then everything will go back to normal. For a given value of normal that’s her life, at least. Which does include Johnny these days, even though every time she even tries to stick a proper label on it in her head her brain begins to spin, her stomach flip-flops, and she doesn’t exactly like the feeling.

Nope. Shut up, brain, she tells herself. They’re not going to think about it. This weekend is for the girls.

“Steve’s work is paying for it,” Darcy says, taking Jess’s suitcase from her and dumping it by the couch/guest bed. “Well, they found the place for us, at least.”

“Uh huh.” Jess crosses her arms over her chest and gives Darcy a pointed look, though she hopes the amusement in her face is clear. “I guess that’s what happens when you move on such short notice.”

“Oh no,” Darcy says, laughing as she walks over to the fridge. “I am not taking the blame for that one.” She pulls out a couple of bottles of water and tosses one over to Jess. “You see, when the government comes calling, you don’t say ‘can I have a month to find someone to take over my share of the lease’?”

Jess perches herself down on one of the stools by the counter, shooting Darcy an impish grin. “Still, so impulsive of you.”

Darcy leans on the countertop, smirking right back at her. “Did I mention the part about the jack-booted thugs?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, pull the other one. So, what’s on the cards for tonight?”

“What are your thoughts on beer gardens?”

“I like that thought very much.”

**********

It’s beyond late by the time Jess and Darcy stumble out of the taxi. “I need more drinks,” Darcy says, taking a stumbling step up onto the curb outside her apartment building. “I know we’ve got beer inside.”

“I need a smoke first,” Jess calls back, tottering on wobbly heels towards the steps that lead up to the front door. She slouches down on the steps, prying her swollen feet out of shoes that no, definitely aren’t a half size too small for her, not at all. Jess hisses with relief as her feet press against the cool, slick stones, and she flexes her toes briefly. Somewhere above her Darcy leans over the railing, and she can hear her cheer quickly. “What’s up?”

“Steve’s home,” Darcy says, nearly crashing down to the steps next to Jess. “His bike’s parked over there.”

“Remind me to get ear plugs,” Jess says, wincing to herself as she fumbles a cigarette out of her clutch.

“We’re not that bad!” Darcy fires back.

When Jess looks over at her, however, she can see that Darcy’s cheeks are a bright cherry red, more so than they were just a few minutes before, and she’s pretty sure it’s not just the alcohol that’s causing that color in her face. “You totally are. It’s so much...quieter now that you’ve moved out.”

“Oh, bite me.”

“I think that’s Steve’s job, too.”

Darcy sticks her tongue out at Jess, then slumps over to curl up against her. It’s not terribly cold out, at least compared to the winter they’ve just come through, but there’s a chill in the air that’s not easy to shake. The body heat can only help. Jess exhales, the smoke curling from her lips, and then she blurts out, “I think I did something really stupid.”

“Define stupid,” Darcy says, picking her head up to stare blearily at Jess, who’s suddenly finding it hard to meet her friend’s eyes. “Jessie?”

“I slept with Johnny.”

“Johnny.” Darcy blinks hard, bringing her eyes into focus. “You slept with Johnny Storm, the guy you once called ‘the world’s greatest flaming STD?’”

“Multiple times.”

Darcy pauses, her head drifting back to Jess’s shoulder just as Jess takes another puff. “Okay, I see what you mean by stupid.”

“Yeah.” She stares out at the street lamps around them, illuminating relatively quiet streets and the variety of historic, upscale apartment buildings around them. It’s still a city around here, but there’s an entirely different feel from New York, Jess thinks. Or maybe that’s just the alcohol talking. “I’m not sure I want to stop.”

“Double stupid.”

“Yup.”

Jess sighs, resting her head against Darcy’s. “So what do I do?”

Darcy snorts indelicately. “You’re asking me? I can barely figure out my own life.”

“Yeah, but, like, you’ve got the relationship that actually works. I don’t know what the fuck I’ve got going.”

“Don’t look at me for how to figure out how a relationship works. I got fucking lucky, and even then it’s not easy. I’m pretty sure between the two of us we’ve got enough stubbornness to power most of Brooklyn. And, well, I think that’s the question you have to ask yourself.” Darcy plies the cigarette out of Jess’s fingers and takes a puff herself, almost but not quite coughing in Jess’s ear as she exhales. “Is it just fucking, or is it something more?”

Jess shakes her head. “I dunno. I’m kind of flying blind here.”

“Do you want it to be more?”

If there’s an answer to that question, Jess can’t even admit it to herself right then. So instead she stays quiet, taking the cigarette back and focusing on it to fill the empty space.

Darcy nods then, her chin digging into Jess’s shoulder. “Well, then, as painful as it is for me to suggest this, because it’s going to take a lot for me to think that Johnny Fucking Storm is anything more than a pain in the ass and that you can do better, I think you only really have one option.”

“Which is?”

“You’re going to have to talk to him.”

“Damn it.”

“This is why people don’t come to me for advice.”

Jess takes one last puff from the cigarette, and then stabs it out with more force than necessary on the stone steps below them.   “Ugh. I’m not thinking about it until I get back to the city.”

“A wise plan.” Darcy pushes herself to her feet, finally reaching upright after a couple of false starts, and then she hoists Jess up, too. “And just so you know, if Johnny pisses you off in any way, even the smallest little thing, I’ll kill him for you myself.”

Jess feels herself smiling, a little warmth spreading out inside her that’s got nothing to do with alcohol. “You got it.”

“Just ask Jane, I did the same thing with her guy, and last time I saw him he was a hell of a lot more impressive than Johnny Storm ever was,” Darcy babbles on as she pushes open the door to the apartment building and they stumble their way up the stairs, into Darcy’s apartment. “There might have been a taser involved.”

Jess can hear the shower running off in the distance, presumably Steve returned from whatever business trip he’s been on. It all blends into the background as Jess settles herself down on one of the stools by the counter, slumping over and letting her eyes close until she hears the clink of glass in front of her. “Okay.” She opens her eyes to see Darcy standing in front of her, another bottle of beer being pushed across the counter in her direction. “Forget about the jackass for right now, and drink instead.”

Jess lifts her beer bottle, saluting Darcy with it, and drinks half the bottle down in one gulp. Champion drinking skills, for the win.

Darcy grins at her, raises her own bottle, and then stumbles her way over to the iPod dock sitting on a bookshelf. A couple of clicks and music floods the apartment, poppy, upbeat tunes that sound like the music Jess’s parents would have listened to when they were kids. Darcy's always had a thing for those older songs, from eras in which neither one of them was alive. It seems entirely contradictory to the way she carries herself, but for some unknown reason it works, and it’s just what Jess needs. It’s all too easy for the music to take her brain to someplace that’s not home and not all of the complications that are waiting back there for her.

She slides off the stool and spins around, the arm with the beer raised in the air, and she giggles as she spins her way over to the couch. Alcohol does not make her graceful, however. So between the drinks and whatever damn platter Darcy’s got propped up behind the couch, Jess stumbles over it and ends up half on, half off the couch, with beer splashed in her hair and her heels kicking in the air.

“You okay?” Darcy asks, though any concern she’s got is utterly obliterated by the giggles that muffle the words.

“Yep!” Jess twists until the beer bottle’s placed on the side table, and she rolls onto the cushions. “Ooh, head spin.” She peers over the edge of the couch, frowning down at the shadows there. “That is one very patriotic chip and dip bowl.”

Darcy just cackles and turns the music up louder.

**********

It’s well past three in the morning when they finally call it a night, though it’s not for lack of trying. Jess is all but passed out on the couch, burrowed in under a slightly lumpy yet entirely cozy afghan that’s pulled up almost to her mouth. She’s not quite asleep, though, not just yet. Drifting in that hazy, drunken, sleepy place is a fun place to be, and she lounges on the couch as some of the greatest hits of the 1960s softly echo around the room. Darcy’s fast asleep on the loveseat, one hand dangling off the couch with the fingers still loosely gripped around the last beer bottle.

‘Good times,’ Jess thinks, stretching out and letting the music surround her, lulling her to sleep.

She’s almost fully asleep when the soft click of the music turning off reaches her ears. Her eyes open, just a slit, but it’s all too easy to see Steve shuffling around the room in his pajamas. Quickly and quietly, he picks up any stray beer bottles that had rolled away throughout the night and puts them on the coffee table. Then he walks over to Darcy, crouching down so that he can push a strand of hair away from her face.

It’s an infinitely tender move, and it practically freezes Jess in place, staring at them with sheer wonderment. What would it be like, she thinks hazily. But the look isn’t entirely unfamiliar; and she knows where she’s seen it before, directed right at her. Coming from the last person she’d ever imagined it would come from, yet the only person she wants to see it from, she realizes in that sluggish, fuzzy way that happens at the end of a long night with too much alcohol.

Jess continues watching as Steve lifts Darcy off the couch like she’s as light as a pillow, cradling her in his arms. Darcy makes a grouchy little noise and swipes at her nose, but in seconds she’s back to sleep, slumped against his chest. Steve just grins indulgently down at her, and then heads down the hall to their bedroom.

Sleep is a very good, wonderful, enticing idea. And as soon as Jess rolls over onto her stomach, burying her face into the soft pillows there, that is exactly what she does.

**********

The next morning is...not an easy one. Jess wakes up far later than she normally does, and promptly rolls over, burying her face in the couch cushions and covering the rest of her head with the blanket. They do a decent job at blocking out the light that’s stabbing into her eyeballs, even though they don’t do a damn thing to stop the pain that keeps throbbing in her skull. And let’s not even mention the step dancing her stomach is doing.

Eventually some small noises make it through her blanket cavern, vague clinking and muffled voices. Jess knows she should get up and be a good houseguest, but chances are Darcy resembles a member of the walking dead also, so at least she won’t be alone in her pain. Literally. What manages to get her fully awake is the smell of coffee in her nostrils, strong and bitter and utterly soul reviving. She lurches upright, and is convinced that every single strand of her hair hurts, spiraling out from her brain and driving spikes into her head with every corkscrew curl. “Ow,” she whimpers. Still, somehow she manages to get herself to her feet, wobbling most of the way, but at least she’s standing. Jess stumbles her way over to the island, slumping over on the stool next to Darcy.

Darcy looks about as good as she feels, hair a tangled mess, dark shadows under her eyes, and a sickly pallor to her skin. She holds a bag of frozen corn to her forehead, while her other hand maintains a death grip on a mug of coffee. “Morning,” she mumbles.

“Yo.”

Far more quietly than Jess would have ever expected, Steve comes up to the other side of the counter and places a mug of coffee in front of her. Darcy also slides a bottle of aspirin in her direction, wincing a bit at the slight scraping noise the bottle makes. “Thanks.”

As she’s staring down at the counter, watching Steve’s hands as he butters a slice of dry toast, a memory from the night before slams its way to the forefront of Jess’s mind. She looks up, staring at Steve and Darcy, her mouth pursing with suspicion. “A patriotic chip and dip bowl?” she blurts out?

Darcy and Steve trade a long look, and there’s an uncomfortable, twitchy silence that fills the room briefly. Then Darcy shrugs, waving a hand in Steve’s direction. Steve’s eyes skate back to Jess, and he puts the knife and toast down slowly. “How good are you at keeping secrets?” he says carefully, meeting her eyes.

‘Better than you know’, she thinks.

Instead, Jess nods at him. “Coffee first, then talk.”

**********

Later that day, as she and Darcy sit on a bench overlooking the Potomac nursing juices with supposed restorative properties, Jess hauls out her phone. She doesn’t think about what she’s doing, not really (because if she did maybe then her brain would stop her and call her an idiot again), not until after it’s already done.

_‘Out of town right now,’_ she texts to Johnny, ‘ _but when I get back, we should talk. Nothing bad! Cuz those words always sound bad but it’s not. I just want to talk.’_

Only a few minutes pass by before Johnny texts her back. _‘Yeah, sure. Come by mine, I’ll cook dinner.’_

_‘You? Cook?’_

_‘Heat up and replate?’_

_‘That makes more sense.’_


	10. April, 2013 (part two)

 

‘Okay,’ Jess tells herself, just as her hand steals up to scratch at the back of her neck where the strands of the wig itch her skin. ‘You’re just going in to talk. You got this.’ She takes a deep breath, and tugs sharply at the trench coat’s sash wound tightly around her waist. Her eyes flick upwards, tracing the lines of the Baxter Building up and up and up, all the way into the heavy grey clouds hanging low in the night sky. The clouds have that eerie pallor to them, thanks to the abundance of lights coming from the city streets, and it sends a small shiver down her back. ‘Focus, dammit.’ Another deep breath, and she places her palm on the glass and metal door that leads into the building.

The lobby’s ornate, more gold work and scrolling decorations that go all over the walls and almost burn her eyes. It’s the last place she’d ever expect Johnny to live, but she’s fairly certain the building’s been like this since long before he was born. Her heels, tall boots with stilettos that let her look more confident than she actually feels, click-clack on the slick marble flooring.

“Can I help you, miss?” the old doorman asks from behind his desk, making Jess startle and turn to him with wide eyes.

“I’m okay,” she blurts out, her hand reflexively clenching around the strap of her bag. “Thanks though.”

Jess looks over at the directory list, nails digging into the leather of her pocketbook by now. It’s not like she wasn’t told which apartment to go to (she’s read the text enough times by now to memories the damn thing), but a few more minutes just to organize her brain can’t hurt.

One of the elevators open, making both Jess and the doorman look over to see who’s there. Jess, however, is the only one who bites back a nervous groan. Johnny’s standing there in the elevator, looking as casual as anything, hands shoved in jeans pockets and shirtsleeves pushed back.  

‘Maybe we could do dinner afterwards…’

No, bad brain, she scolds herself, even though she has to resist the urge to dig her teeth into her lower lip.

Before her brain can go any further, Johnny spots her across the lobby. She watches as he pauses in his tracks for a moment, then bursts out laughing, loud enough to echo throughout the hall. It’s one of those laughs where he has to bend over and brace himself on his knees just to keep from hitting the floor in a pile of giggles.

Jess grimaces, and reaches up to scratch under the edge of the stupid wig once more.

“Nice look, Morticia," Johnny manages to get out amidst the giggles.

If anything, his laughter manages to unfreeze her bones, and she walks over to him on those stilts that she knows make her legs look super long. “Good evening to you too,” she says, dryly. "And Morticia Addams is a BAMF, so your insults are irrelevant."

"Hey, I've always thought Morticia was the sexy one." Johnny reaches out and takes her hand, tugging her toward the elevators. "She's with me, Stan."

"Have a good night, Mister Storm," the doorman calls back dismissively.

The elevator’s a bit stifling as it moves upwards, like it’s so warm it’s difficult for her to draw a breath. Which isn’t entirely Johnny’s fault, even though he throws off enough heat on any given day to be a portable furnace. Jess is sure her hand is sweating where her fingers are linked with his, however, and she watches as his foot beats out a rapid, staccato beat against the floor of the elevator.

It’s kind of nice to have confirmation that she’s not alone in trying to figure out whatever the hell is happening between them.

“I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea,” Jess mutters, her hand sneaking under the wig once more and scratching rapidly at a patch of irritated skin.

Johnny glances over his shoulder at her. “You having second thoughts about coming here?” he says lightly, casually.

Jess shakes her head, digging her fingernail in even further. “No, not about that, about wearing this stupid wig. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“A desire to spice things up in the bedroom a bit?”

She snorts indelicately, shoving her hand into her pocket before she scratches so hard she breaks the skin. “Yeah, we’re doing fine there. I think I just didn’t want your sister to catch me here, not yet.”

Johnny turns and leans back against the wall of the elevator, keeping his hand tangled up with hers, and gives her a smirk. “You do remember that the last time you met Sue you had a florescent blue wig on. And not much else other than body glitter, if I recall.” He sighs, a playful, faraway look in his eyes. “Oh, the folly and courage of youth.”

“It was for a photo shoot,” Jess retorts. “And that’s not the point. Just...indulge me? Please?”

The bell goes off, and the elevator doors open up on a spacious entryway. Johnny leads her down a hallway off to the side, and then through another door, this one nowhere near as grand as the main entry way. The apartment it reveals is spacious, minimalistic, with dark leather couches, stainless steel appliances, and an entertainment system that puts anything her family’s ever owned to shame. There’s a little more personality on the pictures on walls, fast cars and motorcycles, and other bright, colorful photos that remind her far more of Johnny than anything else. On the kitchen counter are more than a few take-out containers, just like he’d promised, and the dining table is already set for the two of them. “So this is the inner sanctum.”

“Welcome to my secret lair.”

“Not that secret.”

“Nope.”

Jess drops her purse on an oversized chair and shucks off the trench coat, draping it over the back. She wiggles her shoulders in relief, stretching her muscles out. The damn wig is still itching her head, however, and she scratches at it once more.

“Here, I got it,” Johnny says, coming closer to her and reaching out for her head. His hands easily find the bobby pins and he plucks them out gracelessly, dropping them onto the coffee table with soft plinks. Jess stands still as he does this, trying hard to keep her eyes from falling closed every time his fingers skate along her scalp. Finally he pulls the wig free from her head and tosses it next to her purse. “Better?” he whispers.

She nods, weakly. “Uh-huh.” When Jess looks up she finds that Johnny’s eyes are intense on her once more, and that banked fire inside of them seems to be flaring up. She places her hands on his abdomen, feeling the muscles twitch under her palms, and then runs her hands up over his chest and up to his shoulders.

When he swoops in to kiss her a second later, Jess thinks that it’s a good thing leftovers heat up well before her higher brain cuts out on her and instinct takes over.

**********

The scent of Johnny’s cologne fills Jess’s nose as her eyes flutter open. She rolls over in the soft sheets, burying her face in the empty pillow next to her. The bedroom is mostly dark, though this is nighttime in Manhattan - it’s never truly dark. Her hand glides across the empty space in the bed next to her. It’s still warm, so wherever Johnny is, he can’t have gone far.

With a bit of a wobble, Jess pushes herself upright, her body still full of that odd combination of lethargy and exhilaration that she’s finding takes up residence in her skin after good sex. She rolls to a standing position and pulls the top sheet off the bed to wrap around herself.

The windows out in the main room are big and uncovered, she tells herself. It is NOT a security blanket.

Jess pads quietly out to the living room, clutching the sheet around her body. She spots Johnny standing right by the windows, boxer briefs slung low on his hips, arms crossed over his chest, and his brow furrowed as he stares out at the nighttime city. He shifts slightly, flicks his eyes over in her direction, but doesn’t move otherwise. Jess comes up behind him and rests her chin on his shoulder.

It’s a subtle movement, but she can feel Johnny leaning back against her, just slightly, skin warm even through the sheet. “I’m not good at this...relationship stuff,” he eventually says in a soft voice.

Jess nods, the pointed end of her chin digging into his bare skin. “You and me both. Never had any sort of a, a romantic relationship before anyway. If that’s what you want to call it. So I’ve got no clue what we should be doing.”

His eyes cut over to her again, and she can see the quick flex of one eyebrow. “Should be doing? Maybe it should be: ‘what do we want to do’?”

She can see their shared reflection in the window, Johnny standing still as a statue and Jess with her head peeking over his shoulder, curly hair messy enough to create a small halo around both of them in the warm lights that shine in the living room. They look good together, she thinks. Like there’s something about the other’s presence that causes them to blend together slightly, borders vague and a bit fuzzy in the glass. “I want you, Johnny,” Jess blurts out, without thinking, still staring at that reflection. Maybe if she thought about it the words wouldn’t have come out so easily. But maybe thinking is overrated, sometimes, and she should just go with it instead. “Just you, just Johnny. I don’t know about anything else, but I know that. Uh...yeah.” She feels her face flaming up, and she buries it in the back of Johnny’s neck to try and hide the blush.

“Those are not words I ever thought I’d hear coming out of your mouth. I’ve heard a lot of new words from you these last couple of months, when I think about it, but not those.”

Her stomach flutters, that slightly sick feeling building in her that says that she’s taking this far more seriously than Johnny ever could. That the risk she took in ripping her soul open for those few words wasn’t worth it, and now her soft insides are dripping from those gaping wounds. Jess begins to draw away, back stiffening as she straightens up.

But then Johnny, moving a lot faster than she’d ever imagined he could, spins around and pulls her against him, hands wrapping around her back. She breathes out heavily, the shock of the movement still running through her, but then she relaxes, bending toward his shoulder once more. “I don’t get that a lot,” he says quietly, close to her ear. “Got a lot of people wanting a piece of the Human Torch. Not many people want just Johnny.”

“Well, I hear the Torch can be a bit of an egomaniacal asshole sometim--hey!” she yelps, just as his hand moves down to pinch her ass. Jess pulls her head off of his shoulder and gives him a look. “I was going to say that Johnny’s got hidden depths but then you go and pull a thing like that,” she says, watching the smirk spread across his mouth.

“You know, I could say the same thing about you,” he fires back. “The hidden depths of Jessica Cortlandt. They’re a lot deeper than she lets people know.”

“You wanna stick around and find out all my secrets?” Jess raises her hands to run them over Johnny’s bare chest, the blue bedsheet clinging on to her shoulders precariously.

Johnny’s eyes trail downwards, over the bare skin revealed by the bedsheet. “Every single one,” he whispers, running a single finger over her collarbones and down the center of her chest, right between her breasts. “It’ll probably take a long time, huh?” he says, looking up to meet her eyes dead on.

“Ages. And I’d say that’s true about discovering Just Johnny’s hidden depths.” Jess shuffles in even closer, close enough that her lips brush against his when she speaks again. “You up for the challenge?”

“Bring it on.” Johnny kisses her, and there’s no hesitation there at all. He dives right in, parting her lips with his tongue as his hands pull her hips flush against his. Jess wraps her arms around his shoulders, and the sheet gives up any pretension of modesty and slips right to the floor. Johnny’s hands go around to her ass, squeezing lightly before he lifts her up, just slightly, and begins to walk her backwards towards the couch.

They land on the leather with a rough squeak and a tangle of limbs, which makes the immature teenager inside Jess giggle against Johnny’s mouth. “Oh, and just for the record,” Johnny says as he sits up to strip off his boxer briefs. “I want just you too. And not just in a friendship or a fuck buddy sort of a way.” He tosses the underwear, landing someplace far enough away that they’re going to be an unexpected find the next morning.

“Good,” Jess smiles, reaching out to pull him over her.

**********

The second time Jess wakes up in Johnny’s bed, the sun’s beginning to rise, bleeding over the tops and between the Midtown skyscrapers that surround them. The clouds from the night before have burned away overnight, leaving blue skies and a shiny new world for them. She pushes herself upright slowly, taking in the sight through the large picture windows in the room. Johnny snoozes away next to her, the bedsheets clinging to his hips providing only the barest illusion of modesty to anyone looking in. Not that they’re looking in, not at this height, but still.

She…well, she isn’t really thinking about anything at the moment, but she feels pretty damn good. Like she’s comfortable and happy, and, despite all the insanity that had led up to it, that she is exactly where she’s meant to be.

Who’d have thought it?

There’s a slight shift in the bed, followed by a rustling noise. Jess glances over her shoulder to find that Johnny’s rolled onto his back and is blinking up at her sleepily. It’s kind of adorable, in an overgrown puppy sort of a way. “Good morning,” she says.

“Morning.”

They lapse into a comfortable silence again, and Jess turns back to the window, letting the sun soak into her skin. Her eyes close, and if she’s not careful she knows she’d topple over and fall right back to sleep again. She could still do that, she supposes. She’s got no plans for the day that involve moving beyond this bed, come to think of it.

Johnny sits up behind her, propping his chin on her bare shoulder. “So what’s going through Just Jess’s mind right now?” he asks.

She shakes her head with a rueful grin, running a hand back through the tangled mess of her hair. “I can’t believe you remember that,” she mumbles, and damn if she isn’t blushing now. She ducks her head down to her chest, trying to disguise the flush that’s spreading across her face.

“I remember lots of things about you,” Johnny says. “Like, for instance, the first time we met you were wearing a pink wig, and you fleeced me in poker bad enough that I lost half the cash I had on hand to you, as well as paying far too much money for a cheeseburger in that casino.” He presses a quick kiss to her shoulder as his hand comes to rest on her waist, adding to the warmth from the sun.

Jess glances back at him again, only to find an arched eyebrow and a smirk tugging at his lips. “The folly of youth?” she offers up.

“Yeah, you and I both know you’d do the exact same thing today,” he says with a shake of his head.

“True. And you’d probably deserve it too.”

“Well, I’ll just have to make it up to you in some other way instead.”

“Now that sounds like something I’m going to enjoy very much.”

They spend the weekend talking about everything and nothing, broken up by long stretches of vigorous sex and reheated take-out, trading stories and secrets and anything else they can think of.

(All but one secret of Jess’s, at least. She’s not ready to share that one, not yet. She’s not sure if she ever will be.)

When Jess strolls out of the Baxter Building Monday morning her head is held high and there’s a little smile that dances across her lips, feeling a bit like the world has shifted, but that it’s a good shift. An unexpected one, without a doubt, but then who ever said that life had to happen exactly how you envision it? Sometimes it’s even better.

The long black wig stays back at Johnny’s apartment in the place of honor on a shelf in the living room, propped on top of a motorcycle helmet like some kind of a demented hat, with a leopard print bow woven through the strands, just for the hell of it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title totally comes from a song lyric as titles are my ultimate weakness. It’s a little corny, but I couldn’t resist the pun and the cheesiness. And yes, I totally stole the ‘patriotic chip and dip bowl’ line from an episode of Ultimate Spider-Man. However, if you’ve seen the episode, you’ll have somewhat of an idea of what’ll happen in the sequel to this story. Or at least who's going to show up in it. And yes, there will be a sequel. There’s a lot more to this universe than what’s in this one story, and also with Jess and Johnny, so there’s definitely more to come. The sequel will also explain some of the possible liberties I took with the modeling industry too… *whistles innocently* For sneak previews and other little fic tidbits, as well as inspirational photographs, check out my tumblr at aenariasbookshelf.tumblr.com.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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